


Building Relationships

by Duganator01



Series: Moonage Daydream [4]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, References to Depression, Robots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26464582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duganator01/pseuds/Duganator01
Summary: Setting out on your own was never easy, and Ruby had grown up with a large family. When left alone in the vastness of space, she really should have expected to get lonely. But she was fine.What was technology for, anyway?Or: Ruby Rose’s journey into emotional repression
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Penny Polendina & Ruby Rose, Ruby Rose & Sun Wukong
Series: Moonage Daydream [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851859
Kudos: 5





	Building Relationships

**Author's Note:**

> New friends to be made, new places to see

Ruby hesitated in the doorway to her ship.

Her family’s house was dark, and she could hardly see it in the pale starlight. Varellex only had nighttime once a month, and Ruby had taken the opportunity to leave while everyone was asleep. She could picture her father and hatchmates all bundled up together under a mound of blankets, warm, happy, and completely unaware that she was missing. 

Ruby’s dad had been trying to convince her to stay for the past week and a half, ever since she'd bought her ship. It would be best if she left without his knowing.

Ruby’s ship hummed quietly as the power turned on. She- she hadn’t named it. Honestly, she didn’t really want to. Why’d a ship need a name anyway? It wasn’t alive. It was just a vessel. A tool. 

Besides, if she named it, she'd get attached, and then she'd probably lose it and feel worse because she'd named it. So it’d remain nameless. If anyone asked, she'd just make something up, probably.

Ruby watched Varellex fade into the distance, and then its three suns. Finally, she was on her own. Alone. She'd only been gone for a few hours, but she already missed her family. She could picture them all waking up to the first sunrise, realizing she was missing, searching for her. 

She felt a pang in her heart as she pictured her father running outside and noticing her missing ship. It- it was better this way. Besides, she'd make new friends out here. With all the species she'd seen and heard of, there had to be someone who’d care about her.

* * *

_ Several Months Later _

Ruby’s stomach rumbled, and she froze. For a GAAP ship, her target was surprisingly poorly guarded. She'd only seen one person- an alien with a long curling tail and tufty hair like they’d experienced some kind of static shock -through the gaps in the ventilation. It was a pretty small ship, but even small ships had food. 

When Ruby was sure the GAAP agent hadn’t seen her, she kept crawling forward, finally reaching the kitchen. The walls were lined with cupboards, and two fridges sat on the opposite side of the room, beckoning Ruby towards them. Carefully, she slipped out of the vent and landed on the countertop. 

She made short work of the cupboards, grabbing whatever she could while leaving room to pull her sack back through the vent. Unable to resist, she popped one of the smallest cookies into her mouth. 

Finally, she stood in front of the fridges. 

Usually, she didn’t take anything from fridges. The doors were louder, and sometimes even locked. But this one wasn’t, and Ruby just knew there had to be something good inside. She cautiously pulled the door of the first fridge open.

“Who are you, and what are you doing on my ship?”

Ruby turned around slowly. The alien was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, hands resting on the dual pistols at his sides.

“I’m gone,” Ruby said quickly, taking advantage of their confusion to scramble back onto the counters and into the vent.

“Wait! Come back!” the GAAP agent shouted. “I just wanna to talk to you!”

“I know the GAAP’s idea of talking!” Ruby called back. “I’m not plannin’ on dying today!”

“I’m not with them anymore!”

This made Ruby stop. He- he what? “You quit?” Ruby asked, popping her head out of the vent. The dude jumped in surprise, tail lashing anxiously behind him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I quit. I used to work for their information department, but I dug too deep and found things I didn’t agree with. So I quit.” He took his hands off his holsters and held them up placatingly. “Now can we talk?”

Ruby pulled herself out of the ventilation shaft and landed on the ground with a thud. “You’re not gonna shoot me?”

“No I’m not going to- why would I shoot you?”

“I stole your food.”

“Okay, that’s true, but I’m still not going to shoot you. I want to talk. The name’s Sun.”

Ruby hesitated. She didn’t feel comfortable telling a supposedly ex-GAAP agent her real name.

“Rose,” she said, deciding to go with her last name at least. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”

Sun smiled. “Nice to meet you too, Rose, although I have a feeling that’s not your real name.” Rose opened her mouth to defend herself, but Sun shook his head. “That’s fine, dude. I get it. No reason to trust me, after all.” Sun began to walk down the hallway they were standing in, away from the kitchen. “Let me show you something.”

Ruby followed Sun from a short distance behind. Sun was right- Ruby didn’t trust him. Hopefully whatever he was showing her wasn’t a jail cell. Sun stopped at a large door, placing his hand on the scanner. He turned around to face Ruby as the doors slid open, and looked a little surprised to see Ruby so far behind.

“I don’t bite,” Sun teased as Ruby finally caught up. The wide sharp-toothed grin he shot her wasn’t reassuring in the slightest. Ruby just gave him a side-eye and let Sun enter the room first.

They appeared to be on the ship’s bridge. A large holographic screen showed the ship’s current course, and several smaller ones under it showed security footage from the cameras around the ship. Another screen sat to the right of the large one, and Sun perched on the chair in front of it. He began to scroll through several files before stopping on one.

“Take a look,” Sun said, rolling his chair out of the way so Ruby could get a closer look.

“That’s-” Ruby was stunned speechless. It was a file full of 3D blueprints for each model of ship the GAAP used. With these, Ruby would be able to memorize the layout of the ship she was going to rob before she was even on it.

“I have more,” Sun said, causing Ruby to spin around and face him. “I can track almost any ship registered by the GAAP from this console, and I know how many people should be on it, how well guarded it is, and what they’re carrying.”

“I need this,” Ruby said, staring wide-eyed at Sun. “All- all of it.”

“I can’t just give it to you,” Sun replied, laughing. “But stole my food, which I can respect even if it’s  _ my  _ freaking food.” He paused. “I’ll make you a deal though. I’ll tell you what ships are safe, and where all the best loot is, and you’ll give me a cut of the money. Sound good?”

Ruby glanced at the screen. Every single ship in the GAAP’s files, at her fingertips. She had to admit to herself, it wasn’t a bad deal. She'd be able to afford food without having to steal it, and she'd be able to get any parts she needed for her own ship, too. She extended her hand.

“Deal,” she said. “I’m using my own ship though. Yours smells too much like the GAAP.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sun said, shaking Ruby’s hand. “And you can keep the food you took. It looks like you need it more than I do.”

* * *

Back on her ship, Ruby finally finished stacking the cans of food in the cupboards. She and Sun had exchanged communicator signals and parted ways. She'd just gotten off a test call with her a short while ago. Finally, she'd have a steady means of income. 

Sun had even informed her of a black market planet called Nihill. Ruby would be able to buy and sell anything there without any suspicion. She still hadn’t told Sun her real name. Maybe someday, when Ruby really knew she could trust him.

* * *

_ Several Months Later _

Ruby winced as she pulled the needle through and finished the suture. She'd gotten better at stitching her own injuries since she started taking on riskier missions. Some GLE agent had thrown a knife at her as she was escaping and managed to get a pretty nasty slice out of Ruby’s leg. 

Sun was lecturing her for being too reckless and taking the job even though she'd said it was too dangerous. Ruby wasn’t really paying attention. He was no better, after all.

“Ruby, are you even listening?” Sun asked with a sigh. They’d known each other for about a year now, and Ruby had finally built up the courage a couple weeks ago to tell Sun her real name.

“Sorry,” Ruby said, rolling her pant leg back down over her wound. “I was focused on my stitching.”

“I was saying you gotta go to a legit doc about some of your injuries,” Sun repeated. “I know you’re keeping them clean and whatever, but you really need someone with real medical knowledge to be taking a look at them.”

“I told you before, Sun,” Ruby countered, “I can’t just waltz into a hospital. A Velm alone is suspicious enough, but a Velm with knife and blaster injuries? I’d be arrested before they’d even consider tending to my wounds.”

“I know,” Sun admitted, leaning back in his chair. “You just gotta be more careful, dude. This is gettin’ ridiculous”

“I’ll try to figure something out,” Ruby said reassuringly. “Promise.”

Sun grinned his sharp-toothed smile and ended the call. Ruby leaned back in her own chair. She had been getting kind of lonely, and a doctor would be a helpful addition to the team. 

Still, she couldn’t have a real doctor. A real doctor would need food and sleep and money. An android would be expensive. A robot on the other hand, would be significantly cheaper, and the parts on their own would be even cheaper. How hard could building one be?

* * *

Very hard. Building a robot was very hard. Ruby had almost all the parts she needed, and a stack of programming chips. Finding the parts was easy. Figuring out how they went together was much harder. The body was taking her ages to put together, and her sleep-deprived state wasn’t helping. 

Ruby picked up one of several power cores she'd gotten, and began trying to fit it into what she'd deduced was where the power core went. When it didn’t fit, she tossed it back into the box and pulled out another. Didn’t fit. 

She tried several more before one finally clicked into place. The robot body jolted briefly and then settled back down. Ruby took a step back and looked at her creation. The only things missing were the hands and the head. As if on cue, Ruby’s communicator began ringing.

“Sun! Give me good news,” Ruby said, pressing the answer button.

“I’ve found where you can steal the hands you wanted,” Sun said, “and the head’s almost done. The only problem is the mouth.”

“What’s wrong with the mouth?” Ruby asked nervously.

“I couldn’t find a good one, so it looks a little messed up,” Sun answered. “But if you cover it up with one of those surgical masks you can hardly see it.”

Ruby shrugged. “I’ll take it.”

* * *

A few hours later, she was balanced on a small ledge inside a GAAP transport ship. Lines of different androids stood perfectly straight, waiting to be delivered to their jobs. Ruby scanned the perfect rows for the doctor androids, trying to ignore just how high up she was. Her vision swam when she made the mistake of looking directly below where she was standing. 

Get over it, she thought to herself, briefly closing her eyes to regain her composure. 

It took her a few minutes, but she finally spotted the doctor and nurse androids a few rows away. Two guards chatted idly outside the warehouse door. Nearly silently, Ruby climbed down the warehouse wall.

Ruby kept her body low to the ground as she approached the androids. According to Sun, there were alarms set in each part of the androids, since they sold for such a high price and they didn’t want thieves breaking in and taking them. 

Thieves like her.

Ruby would have to get out quickly, and remove minuscule trackers from the hands before getting back on her ship. A lot of work for just a pair of hands. Hopefully it’d be worth it. Ruby needed the best hands for the robot that would be stitching her up.

Ruby carefully detached the hands from the wrists. Alarms started beeping immediately. Every second counted now. She could hear the guards’ conversation come to an abrupt stop, and flinched as the door opened. 

She ducked inside the field of androids, desperately trying to find the trackers. The guards shouted for her to stop. Ruby quietly apologized and then pushed one of the androids over. 

It hit the one in front of it, and soon several rows of androids were crashing to the ground. The guards were in a panic, struggling to stop the domino effect and keep track of Ruby, who had conveniently just found the trackers. She deftly disposed of them and then began to climb back up the wall, sliding the hands into a satchel as she went.

“Stop! Thief!” One of the guards had their blaster aimed at Ruby.

“I have a name!” Ruby called back, narrowly dodging a shot, which sizzled the wall next to her. She had to resist the urge to scream as a blast shot straight through her tail, leaving the end of it dangling loosely. She slipped out through the sky light just as another blast almost hit her foot.

* * *

Ruby tossed the still-wriggling end of her tail into the garbage disposal and began wrapping the stump where it had detached in bandages.

“This is exactly why you need a doctor,” Sun said, frowning disapprovingly. “That was disgusting.”

“That,” Ruby said, tying off the bandages, “was nothing. I’ve lost the end of my tail more times than I can count. And it’s not disgusting- it’s perfectly natural.”

“But it’s your freaking tail!” he exclaimed, his own tail whipping angrily behind him. “I could freaking never, dude.” Sun shuddered in just the thought. “Whatever, the head’s done now. I’ll send it over once we end the call. Did you get the hands attached?”

Ruby shook her head. “I just got back here and had to cut off the end of my tail,” she said, sounding apologetic. “Haven’t exactly had the time yet.”

“I’ll let you go then,” Sun said, chuckling to himself. “Call me when that robot’s up and running, kay? Later, dude.”

Ruby waved and hummed her confirmation, then ended the call. She pulled the hands out of the satchel and turned them over. They were smooth and clean, with perfectly sculpted joints. Made to perform sutures and surgeries in minutes flat. Ruby pulled the tarp off of her robot and set to work.


End file.
